Posted: September 11, 2007 5:31 PM
Clinton Returns $850,000 Linked to Fugitive Hsu
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New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced Monday  night it plans to return an additional $850,000 worth of donations linked to disgraced Democratic fund raiser Norman Hsu. The New York businessman is awaiting extradition to California from a Colorado hospital, after erratic behavior on an Amtrak train earlier this week led to his capture. Hsu, a Hong Kong native, was originally wanted for failing to appear at a 1992 hearing at which he was to be sentenced for defrauding investors.
In addition to the fraud charges, the FBI is investigating possible campaign finance violations related to Hsu, who has donated or bundled more than $1 million for Democrats, with the highest figures going to Clinton’s presidential campaign. The allegations of illegal bundling activity came to light after Wall Street Journal reporter Brody Mullins noticed irregular donation patterns from a home in the San Francisco suburbs. “There was a lot of money going toward Hillary Clinton from this one address, and just from public records and research online from my desk in D.C. it seemed like the family giving this money didn’t have the means to do so,” said Mullins. “I flew out there and started trying to see other patterns in their donations, and they tended to correlate with the donations of a man named Norman Hsu. The family had given as much money to Democrats in the past three years as their house was worth, and they still have a mortgage and car payments.”
The day after the Wall Street Journal story broke, the Los Angeles Times reported Hsu was wanted in California on 16-year-old grand-theft charges. Hsu then turned himself in but failed to show up for the bail hearing and was then apprehended on the Amtrak train. Once he is stable enough to travel, Hsu is expected to be escorted back to San Mateo, Calif.
The story has shed more light on the activity of bundling campaign contributions and how campaigns vet donors.
Craig Holman, a legislative lobbyist who tracks presidential bundling for the group Public Citizen, said the Clinton campaign “should have seen the red flags. If a candidate is going to rely on these megabundlers like Hsu to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars, I’d straddle my campaign with the responsibility to make sure it is clean money. They should have looked at the history and the records of all of their bundlers. I don’t think any of them do that.”
But Washington attorney and ethics specialist Kenneth Gross disagreed. “The Hsu contributions would have made it through the most stringent vetting process, because there was nothing out there on this guy in recent history,” said Gross, who is also a former associate general counsel to the Federal Election Committee. “This is one case where you really have to be sympathetic to the candidates, because there’s just no way you could know.”
The Clinton campaign earlier announced it would return $23,000 in direct donations from Hsu. In addition to returning the $850,000 to donors associated with Hsu, the campaign announced Monday night that it would start doing criminal background checks on its largest bundlers. Hsu was one of the campaign’s Hillraisers, meaning he had pledged to raise at least $100,000.
Loyola Law School professor Richard Hasen said the fact that most of the major presidential candidates have turned down public financing for the primary is significant. “The system has exploded,” he said. “It has not kept up with the kinds of volume of money we’re seeing now. If you’re a top-tier candidate, you can’t afford to take public financing.”
Prior to the announcement, Clinton participated in Sunday’s Democratic debate sponsored by Univision in Miami, then addressed a group of senior citizens in Boca Raton on Monday. Clinton was in New York to commemorate the Sept. 11 attacks Tuesday and planned to travel to Washington, D.C., later in the day with no campaign events scheduled.
-- By , NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | Comments | Link
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She is not giving back the money. She is going back to those people and, after giving it back, asking them to re-donate it. See the NY Times article coming out on this. What a politician.
When Bill Clinton was elected to his first term as U.S. President, I recall Hillary stating she would take a look at the Canadian health care system. I also recall the U.S. drug industry spending 100 million dollars in one month to lobby against Hillary's plan to look into anyone's national health plan. For some unknown reason, Hillary never looked deeply into Canada's system. I am still wondering why Hillary, apparently gave up on this project. Someone should investigate why the drug industry controls our congress and politicians to an extent unheard of in any other industrialized nation? Our country is going backward as far as the middle class and poor are concerned!
Why is it that Democrates continually get away with specious campaign irregularities, espiecailly from corrupt Chinese businessmen, while Republicans are prosecuted?
The Jim Leher Report is such a breath of fresh air.
We get intelligent questions asked by all the journalists, without interruptions or crass speech. The guests are always respectful, and give very good responses to questions asked. All the other channels should take heed from your example. My husband and I love PBS!. Also, I want to say even though I am a moderate Democrat, I feel that it was the hight of insult for all the politians, and the media to try to pre-empt General Petraeus (hope I spelled his name correctly), and Ambassador Crocker before they had given their report on the status of Iraq. We are very fortunate to have such capable men managing the chaos that is Iraq. We are deeply grateful. We watch your news every evening. thank you for treating us with respect by having such
a quality program.
Warm Regards,
Rosalind Batson